Scuba's Blog » Tech

Apple iPhone 4 Press Conference

Scuba Steve — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:10:05 +0000

Today, Apple held a press conference about the recent problems users have been experiencing with their iPhone 4 cell reception. Apple released that they would do 1 of 2 things:

-Allow for a full refund of the iPhone 4 and any restocking fees and cancelation fees of service would be refunded.

-They would give any iPhone 4 user a free bumper that has been reported to help with the signal issues.

Now, I really think this is a great choice for Apple to make. It allows for iPhone users who want to return the phone, to get their money, and those that want to get their bumpers can for free. I am very glad that Apple didn’t announce a recall. Any phone can have signal loss if held in the right spot, and with only .55% of users (roughly 17000) saying they have signal loss, I don’t think that deserves a recall. 55%, well, that’s a different story.

One quote from Steve Jobs really intreagued me though, and it helped with the recent rumors of a CDMA iPhone with Verizon. I took this from the Wall Street Journal.

Why in the world would Verizon be testing, when the current iPhone does not support CDMA technology, which Verizon uses?! This is a huge hint that Verizon WILL be carrying the iPhone in the near future, maybe January 1?

What did you thin of Apple’s press conference today? Leave your thoughts below, I would love to hear them!

Top 5 Google Chrome Extensions

Scuba Steve — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:10:18 +0000

Sense Google Chrome has come out for Mac, I have adapted to using it and many of it’s awesome extensions. Below I have posted my 5 favorite extensions. Let me know what you think of my 5, and maybe one I need to be using!

5) *Split Screen* “Prompts the user for two URL addresses and then displays both in one window!”

4) LastPass “LastPass is a free password manager and form filler.”

3) Speed Dial “Speed Dial for Chrome – replace Chrome new tab with your predefined visual bookmarks.”

2) Xmarks Bookmarks Sync “Backup and sync your bookmarks across computers and browsers. Xmarks is also available for Firefox, Safari and IE.”

1) Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google) “Automatically previews pdfs, powerpoint presentations, and other documents in Google Docs Viewer.”

Free year of Amazon Prime with .edu address

Scuba Steve — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:00:46 +0000

Last night I discovered that Amazon is now offering anyone with a .edu address a free year of Amazon Prime! All you need is the .edu address, and then give them your school and what you are studying. Great deal for students that may be buying their textbooks there. Head over there now to get signed up! Amazon Student

Top 10 Mac Shortucts

Scuba Steve — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:46:24 +0000

After chatting with Adam one afternoon, and him asking me about a keyboard shortcut, I thought I would share my top 10 Mac keyboard shortcuts! Let me know what you think of mine, and maybe which one I would have left out. Trust me there are plenty!

10 ) CMD T. New tab in Chrome/Safari/Firefox
9 ) CMD, ESC. Front Row access.
8 ) OPTION, CMD, D. Show/Hide dock. Nice to have sometimes when the dock gets in the way.
7 ) SHIFT, CMD, DELETE. Empty Trash.
6 ) CMD, “x” / “c” / “v” / “s” Cut, Copy, Paste, Save (These are almost on any system, but still nice!)
5 ) Shift, Click to minimize. Matrix style window minimization.
4 ) OPTION, CMD, ESC. Force Quit applications
3 ) CMD, SHIFT, 3 or 4. Great easy way to take a quick screen shot.
2 ) CMD “w” or “q”. Close or Quit program.
1 ) CMD, SPACE. You can do almost anything with this, it opens spotlight.

What’s your favorite shortcut? Leave a comment below!

Scuba

Shutdown Windows Machine Remotely

Scuba Steve — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:00:18 +0000

I was needing one night, to shut down a Windows computer at the office. There was a storm rolling in and felt it was best to shut it down. So I logged in remotely to the computer from my house, to find that it would not let me shut down the computer from the start menu (BTW, it’s a Windows 7 machine). I was confused on how I would turn it off. I found out that there is a simple command prompt line that you can use to shut the machine down.

Enter the command prompt by going to Start>Run>”cmd”
In command prompt type “shutdown /s”
Close your remote window.

Inside the command prompt you are even able to send shutdown signals to other computers on the network, or shutdown and restart the computer you are logged into. In the command prompt just type “shutdown” and follow the instructions given.

I hope this helps anyone in the future that may need to shut down a Windows machine remotely.

Umatter2Charter

Scuba Steve — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:00:11 +0000

Being a Charter customer has it’s perks. They off great tv service, but even better internet service. Being a person who is constantly connected to the web, I need good, reliable internet service. But we all know how things can go down, or not work, and thats when Umatter2Charter comes in. Eric Ketzer has developed a team of experts who, behind their computers, serve Charter customers in new ways. Most the time (with any company), you call in, deal with hours of automated systems, until you get to a person who you can’t understand what they are saying (Adobe, that’s you). But in the case for Charter, all you need to do is start your tweet with @charter, and one of several representatives will quickly respond to you and help you in any way possible. Whether it’s Eric, Dylan, Josh, George, Robert, Jeremy, or Witten, they will help you with any problem you may need. (Yes, Charter does offer telephone service, but I never have the patience) The team may even call you, if the matter needs to be solved over the phone, or schedule you a time for a technician to come out and help you. And they have even expanded their social network outreach to more then just Twitter. They are even on Facebook, Myspace (Who uses that anyway?!), DSL Reports Direct Forum and more!

Charter has got this down. It’s great to see a company understand that people want a quick and easy way to solve problems. I have had a few times where things have gone wrong, and quickly and easily this team has helped solve it. Anything from letting me know of a service outage, billing issue, or just straight up “I don’t have internet, how do I fix it?!” So, Umatter2Charter team. You guys rock.

Why I love Netflix

Scuba Steve — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:35:20 +0000

When I was a child, I grew up watching Rugrats, Ahh Real Monsters, Hey Arnold and other awesomely superb animated television shows. I have so much time over the last few years trying to find a way to acquire and watch these old shows again. Then came Netflix to the rescue! Michaela and I were greeted with several seasons of old TV shows we loved to watch. And in combo with my Wii, I am able to watch them on my TV! What are some old TV shows you watched when you were a tike?

8-Bit at Work?

Scuba Steve — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:13:31 +0000

Check out this wicked awesome video recreating an 8-bit video game on a desk.

MY DESK IS 8-BIT from alex varanese on Vimeo.

Guess for Next Weeks Apple Event

Scuba Steve — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:15:10 +0000

As we all know Apple’s big event is next week (January 27th 2010), so below I am listing my thoughts on what we will see released / announced.

-Announcement of iSlate (Apple Tablet)
-Macbook Pro with Quad Core Processor
-iWork / iLife ’10
-iTunes with cloud support and online listening of own library
-iPhone / iPod Touch 4.0 software
–Multi tasking is one feature I hope to see
-MacPro with 6Core Processor
-24″ iMac with Touch Screen

What are your thoughts for the event? Let me know in the comments!

ScubaSteve

Google Wave Invites Available!

Scuba Steve — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:11:12 +0000

I have a bunch of google wave invites available and would love to give them out! All you need to do is tweet the following message and add your email address!

Click this link or Copy and paste this tweet and insert your own email address:

RT @srmorris2 Google Wave Invites available >> http://is.gd/53E8o >> (EMAIL ADDRESS)